Fairchild AFB

I got a package of tourist bullshit tossed on my kitchen counter when I first got here. Ninety nine percent of the material in the propaganda binder was useless to me, but my eye was fixed on a museum that was located in the Air Force Base just outside of the city. I called the number that was in the binder to find out more about the museum and got some nitwit airman on the line.

Nitwit Airman: Fairchild Air Force Base can I help you?
factory_peasant: Hey there. Yeah, um you guys have a museum out there I want to check out. What's the hours and what do I need to come on base?
Nitwit Airman: We have a museum?
factory_peasant: What?
Nitwit Airman: You're asking about a museum. We don't have those here.
factory_peasant: Huh? It says right here in the brochure you guys have some air museum out there and I was interested in...
Nitwit Airman: No, we don't have anything like that.
factory_peasant: Are you sure?
Nitwit Airman: Yeah.
factory_peasant: Okay, whatever. Bye.

I hung up.

That weekend I drove out to the base and hit the main gate. Security stopped me and asked what I was doing and where I was going. I told them I wanted to hit the museum on base. They waved me through but said I had to stop off at the main office and show proof of car insurance or they wouldn't allow me to be driving around. That seemed so unreal to me. I followed their instructions and parked in front of some weird single story building. I headed for the lobby. Inside, I was greeted by a hispanic looking dude in camo fatigues. He seemed bored out of his fucking mind. I told him I wanted to check out the air museum and he had me fill out some bullshit forms, then he gave me directions to the museum.

Driving deeper into the base I caught sight of the massive hangars for KC-135 tankers. Above one of the huge buildings the slogan "Global Reach = Global Power" was painted in ominous black letters above the hangar entrances. Fairchild AFB seemed to me to be a tanker base, nothing more.

I found the museum building and parked the car. It was cool. I checked out a flight simulator for an early model B52, finger fucked a 20mm cannon, and poked around in the electronics cabinets of the B52 flight simulator (it was 1950s vintage and resistors in the circuitry were as big as my index fingers). I took alot of photos of the planes out in front of the museum on static display as well as some targeting computers from the 1950s B52s. Really weird shit. My favorites for photography on the lawn in front of the museum building were a F86 Sabre, a black B52D, a F105 Thunderchief, a Voodoo, and an A-20 from World War II. I think I got some great shots since there was a storm blowing through and I got a break in the storm with a little sunlight. Should make for some killer backgrounds on the planes.